Distance
by pandainpanties
Summary: "Everybody slept, including the youngest Broflovski, who drifted into his own sense of resting as his world was taken over by thoughts of warm days with his eldest red-haired brother and his nose filled with the light scent of cinnamon and flowery musk." Ike gets scared and finds his sanctuary in Kyle's bed. One-shot/fam fluff.


**Prompt inspired from a friend. The ending is really cheesy please don't hate me.**

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It was near two in the morning was when a terrified shriek filled the Broflovski household. A portly red haired woman sat up quickly in bed, her hair sticking out oddly and her eyes forcedly widening despite being woken up from her deep sleep. After so many nights of waking up this particular way, one would think she would be used to it just as her dark-haired husband was.

It had been years since their youngest son started his fascination with YouTube gamers and his loyalty to watching them only grew stronger. Though he veered away from Pewdiepie, he held true to many other uprising and popular gamers, too many to name but enough to have never ending conversations with his colleagues about it. As his taste for gamers changed, so did his taste in videos. It started out with the first person shooter games with plain commentary and shrieks of rage induced hate to comedy sketches, games that made the young Canadian piss himself laughing. From comedy to simple Indie games he always noted to try for himself but never ended up doing so and eventually his taste settled on horror. Though he stuck to horror as it stuck to him like two pieces of rice, for he quickly became obsessed with movies, games, and books of this genre.

Though now as it's half past two in the morning in the dead of night with nothing but the sight of a luminous computer screen and the noise of intense, atmospheric soundtracks and the scraping of bark against his window as bare winter trees swayed idly against the cool wind outside. Ike Broflovski had completely immersed himself on the newest upload from one of the various gamers he watched, his friends having gone to bed hours ago or shrieking in fear at their own computers. His volume was cranked to max as he sat huddled in his desk chair with the lights off, a thin blanket draped around his shoulders and his dark eyes wide as he intensely watched the screen with his knees pulled up to his chest.

As the minutes passed, the young Canadian became more and more disheveled in appearance, each scare causing him to nearly fall backwards out of his chair, his hair to become sticking out at odd angles (something that reminded him of the twitchy boy who worked at the local coffee shop), and his shirt had become loose and wrinkled as he tugged desperately at it in order to pull it over his eyes or into his mouth to bite on in anxiety.

There had only been three more minutes to the video left, and Ike thought all would be fine as it finished, seeing as how this was the fifth - and final - video in the series of the same game, though something felt off tonight. Anybody could agree that there are nights where things feel scarier, more morbid, and downright uncanny as things that you were used to suddenly felt utterly and entirely _wrong_.

This said night was the exact type of night the youngest Broflovski was having. At two minutes left in the video, the last and final jumpscare truly got to him, his heart felt as if it nearly exploded as he screamed in pure horror, a distressed shriek that caused the hairs along his body and neck to stand on end and salty tears to puddle on his thick eyelashes. Reflex had taken over, his fight or flight kicking in, and god dammit, he chose _flight_. Ike pushed roughly against the desk, banging it against the wall as he threw off his headset, dangerously yanking the USB from its slot and violently throwing open the door to his room, bolting down the small hallway as he threw open the door to another bedroom and collapsed on the bed in there.

Ike hadn't consciously realised his decision until a few minutes of being huddled under the blanket that smelled distinctly of light cinnamon and flowery musk. He lay on his brother's bed, the natural redhaired man that grew up in the single room until he went off to college last year at the age of 21. He would have gone sooner seeing as how he was accepted into many great colleges, but at last minute his dream college had accepted him, and though it took longer, he waited satisfied. Ike's mind didn't see anything wrong with his decision and though the young Broflovski would never tell anybody, much less admit to himself how "lame" it was to hide in his brother's room, he found it his sanctuary. He never touched anything in Kyle's room, the posters that hung from the walls of the taste in music he was in at the time of his stay and his various posters with famous inventors and physics professors, the computer that was outdated but still sat in his room unplugged, and the leftover clothes and toys from his younger years scattered on the floor. Shiela never touched Kyle's room either, thinking it was rather charming to leave it as he did, though messy.

Ike sighed softly and ignored his thoughts, blocked his paranoid thoughts about the monsters from the horror games, and instead focused his mind on his brother. His odd scent of faint cinnamon and a musk that was delicate, something Ike would make fun of him for having, not realising they used the same type of soap at the time. As Kyle went off into seventh grade, Ike soon took his place fourth grade at the age of seven, young for the grade but old enough. Ike followed in Kyle's footsteps intelligence wise, and though they were not officially blood related, it seemed as if they were from how smart the two boys seemed to be.

The young Canadian found himself often missing his brother, and even missing how years ago kick the baby was still their thing, but as Kyle learned that Ike had grown too big for the abusive game, he ceased. Ike was glad at first, his body hurting from the constant smashing of windows and he wondered sometimes to this day how Kyle hadn't caused him any permanent brain damage. As Kyle grew up into his teenaged years, he became more interested in girls and became buried and more and more homework. The redhead always seemed busy with _something_ , whether he was hanging out with his usual gang of the boy in the ratty orange jacket, the dark haired boy next door who wore a hockey hoodie, and the slimmer but still fat brunet, or he was brooding over his latest unrequited crush, or locking people from his room as he vigorously chewed his pencils in concentration over algebra homework. Though Ike didn't seem to mind since he was always glued to a computer screen in his room or his friends' house or roaming the mall with his own group of friends (though Ike knew these kids were intimidated by him and, therefore, knew they wouldn't stick around for long).

Now as the Canadian's current friends were all asleep, and his parents asleep, and his brother thousands of miles away in another state sitting in a dorm (with his own strange roommate that was sleeping away) chewing his pencil as he stressed over his latest Honours Calculus studies. The town quiet as everybody slept, the time of morning and night coincided as the normal people drifted into the climax of REM and the insomniacs finally rested. Everybody slept, including the youngest Broflovski, who drifted into his own sense of resting as his world was taken over by thoughts of warm days with his eldest red-haired brother and his nose filled with the light scent of cinnamon and flowery musk. Ike fell asleep to the imaginary warmth of another person, fell asleep with his head resting on the creased pillow case. Ike fell asleep thinking about Kyle Broflovski, who mattered to him in ways he wouldn't admit to himself or the world, because blood didn't matter in this type of special bond he had with Kyle. DNA meant nothing in the Broflovski household, and it never would. Because blood doesn't matter, and family does.


End file.
